When It's Love (14 page)

Yes! In this molten moment, of course I want him to touch me. I beg my brain not to raise any doubts, but it does. Am I going to turn into a disposable babe who also happens to be a really good friend? What happens after the orgasm?

Orgasm.

It has been so long since I’ve had one that’s not by my own hand. I want it so much that I know no matter what questions my frustrating little mind comes up with right now, I am saying yes. Yes, I desperately want Henry to touch me. I am wholly alive and having the single most erotic moment of my life – with my best friend. I can feel myself building to a climax just at the thought of being touched.

You only live once.

The past is unchangeable, but life has given me a moment to break away from it, to go from self-loathing to pleasure.

Henry still has his back to me. He has one hand on his hip and the other on his head with his fingers knotted through his hair. His jeans hug his tight ass just right and I can’t think of anything but how much I want to grab it, splay my hands across it and squeeze with all my might. In a moment of sheer, sensuous boldness, raging desire, and thinking only of the here and now, I grab the sides of my panties, yank them down to my ankles, and kick them off. I make sure my shirt is still wide open and run my hands over my stiffened nipples. I pose myself just as I was before Henry turned around, when my panties were still on. Knees bent. Legs splayed wide apart.

“Yes.” I say wantonly.

“Yes, what?” Henry asks without moving.

“Yes, I want you to touch me.”

“Say my name,” Henry demands.

“Yes I want you to touch me, Henry.”

With that Henry turns around and as he takes sight of me, he drops to his knees.

“Oh, Sydney, baby,” he murmurs. “You have no idea …”

Henry doesn’t finish his sentence and he doesn’t get up. He stays on the floor, making his way over to me, sleek as a panther. My heart is racing and passion, not reason, is my guide. I have completely exposed myself to Henry and instead of feeling shy, I just want to give him more. As he inches toward me I lie back on the futon without moving my legs. I close my eyes and savor the sweet unrest of this moment where my body is full of exquisite tension and pleasure rules.

I’m anticipating Henry’s touch. I ache for it. Just as I’m wondering if he’s going to kiss me, I feel his weight beside me on the mattress. I open my eyes to look at him. He’s lying on his right side, propped up on his elbow, and staring at my face. Without taking his eyes off of mine, Henry places his hand
there
between my legs.
There
, where I’m completely open, exposed, and dripping wet. His large hand palms me and his long fingers reach down my ass. He’s looking at me closely, looking deeply into my eyes as he sets the heel of his hand against my clit, and,
oh, yes
, that’s all it takes. No rubbing or manipulating required because my body tenses at the gentle pressure of his hand, the throbbing escalates, my mouth opens, and I close my eyes again as I yelp out his name. And that’s all I can say because my body is quivering and quaking and I’m gasping fiercely, coming like I’ve never come before. The climax is rocking my entire body. It’s rocking my entire world. I throw my hands into my hair, fisting it as the pulsating pleasure-wave cascades through me for several long, rapturous seconds before it begins to recede with jolting aftershocks. Within a minute my muscles go lax and I finally catch my breath. I open my eyes and see Henry still staring at my face. There’s a half smile on his lips.

“Henry,” I say. I’m speechless.

He puts his finger over my lips and says, “Shhhh.” I can smell myself on his hand and it occurs to me that this should be deemed
way to feel sexy #3.

I have absolutely no idea what will happen next. Is he going to kiss me? Is it my turn to touch him? Are we going to have sex? Henry starts to get up and I expect him to roll over on top of me. As I ready myself for his weight on my body, I realize he’s not moving to get on top of me, but to get his cap, which had fallen off my head when I lay back on the futon. “Hey, I thought I was keeping that cap,” I say playfully. Henry doesn’t respond. He just gets up, adjusts his clothes and puts his fleece back on. “Get under the covers so you don’t get cold,” he says as he puts on his hat. He walks over to the table where he left my phone and tosses it over to me. “The pictures for Professor Sparling are in there,” he says coldly. “See you tomorrow for Christmas dinner.” He leaves without another word.

I’m lying on my futon utterly dumbfounded and deflated. What just happened between Henry and me was earth-shattering - in the good sense and the bad sense. My body had a truly, deeply, passionate and erotic experience. (Without any kissing!) Even with my imagination running wild, like in my messages to Professor Sparling, I never dreamed anything could be as hot as the encounter I just had with Henry. And because it was so good, I’m filled with questions I never expected to ask. Was it so good because it was Henry and he knows me better than anyone? Was it so good because it’s been so long since a man has touched me? Was my body so desperate and needy that any old hot guy could have made me feel this way? Or do Henry and I have something real between us that I didn’t realize was there? When Henry looked at my naked body, I saw more than lust in his eyes. His eyes were drunk with passion, maybe even love. But when it’s love, you don’t take a woman down a mind-blowing sensuous road and then leave her stranded and alone.

The sting of Henry’s leaving leads me to curl up into a ball on my futon and put a pillow over my head. He gave me the biggest high I’ve ever had and then left me to fall. I can’t forget the look on his face when he tossed the phone at me, as if I’d done something horribly wrong when all I’d done was play along with him (and get mighty turned on). But isn’t ‘turned on’ what he was going for? If he hadn’t run out I would have continued what we started. But I can’t get a guy off who runs away. I don’t want to be angry with Henry. I want to be with him. I want to feel his lips on mine, the pleasure wave pummeling me again, and the ease of being I felt with his hard body beside me. But I feel like I should be angry with him.

If Henry hadn’t asked to touch me, our whole encounter would have been different. I’d have assumed he was doing a fun favor for me when he took the pictures. Some sexy fun between friends isn’t such a big deal, especially if you know all along that the fun isn’t supposed to lead to actual sex. But I’m pretty sure we crossed the ‘fun’ line when I came on his hand! Should I be embarrassed? I don’t know, and I don’t know how to read Henry’s intentions. While he took those pictures, did he really intend them to be for Professor Sparling or did he want them for himself? As I’m asking these questions, it dawns on me that Henry is a player. This is not news to anyone in Addison, Michigan. Fuck! Henry led me into a trap and I went willingly. I should have stopped it, but I loved the part of me that he was luring out. And what I thought I saw in his eyes seemed genuine. But, now as I replay the encounter in my mind, I understand what an idiot I am. Henry sensed my arousal and started a game with me, getting me hot and wet and putting his hand between my legs and feeling me come on his fingers … And then when his game was over, he walked out the door.

What an asshole.

Now I know how all of his disposable babes feel. I hold in my tears, determined not to go to pieces over Henry, though I feel like I’ve just been slapped across the face.

Thanks to the long nap I took this afternoon, I’m wide awake now and my cats are pouncing around the apartment, happy as can be that I’m up late at night with them. I grab my phone and scroll through the pictures Henry took of me.
That’s me!
I don’t look like the drab student who wears an ugly parka and gets good grades. I look like a seriously bad girl. In fact, I’d even go as far to say I look highly fuckable. And lucky for me, there is a mega-hot man out there who wants to fuck me. And he’s a famous professor and an amazingly talented writer.

If Professor Sparling is still awake, I’m sure he’d like to see a picture of me. The problem is, as I’m scrolling through one photo after another, the only thing I can think about is Henry. As angry as I am that he left, a part of me feels like the pictures belong to him. They’re evidence of a moment we shared that was sexy and exciting – a moment he turned and walked away from.

I walk over to my table, pick up the empty soup bowls and put them in the sink. The uneaten baguette-bat is still resting on the counter. I whack it against the wall a couple times to release some of my frustrations. Crumbs go flying, and so do the startled cats. “Sorry, Tiny and Little,” I say. After what happened between Henry and me, he should be here holding me in his arms. I should be running my fingers through his hair and kissing my way down his stellar chest, all the way down to …

It’s so odd to be having my “Professor Sparling fantasies” about Henry. It’s ridiculous. I shake my head from side to side as if that can clear Henry out of my mind. But that’s what I need to do. He walked out on me, so fuck him. I need to turn my lust back to the man who really wants me. I grab my phone and open the closet door to access my full-length mirror, prepared to snap some pictures of my own for Professor Sparling, because if it doesn’t feel right to send Professor Sparling the pics that Henry took, then selfies it shall be. In Henry’s pictures I look hot, but in my own, I’ll probably come out looking like a giant douchebag.

I’m still wearing the open nightshirt and nothing else. I face the mirror and take a photo of my face. Then I angle my hand so the camera gets my face and my breasts. Next I step back so I can get my whole body into the picture. I cross my free arm over my breasts, hiding my nipples, and stand with my feet wide enough apart so that my lips below spread just the slightest bit. I look down at my breasts, and snap the picture, and … it’s perfect. Without missing a beat I send it to Professor Sparling with a one-line message.
I want you now.

The posing, exposure, and the bold sexiness I’ve discovered in myself excites me. And the thought of Professor Sparling looking at the picture is titillating, too. Not quite as exciting as Henry watching me come, but it’ll do just fine. I lie back down on my futon and put my hand between my legs. I stick one finger inside me, pulling the wetness out and rubbing it up and around my clit. I touch myself gently at first until I reach the tense point of blissful unrest. I rub a little bit harder and then stop, teasing myself to make it last. My body stiffens as I start to build. I pull my knees up, raise my ass off the mattress and put more pressure around my clit. Finally, I summon up an image of Professor Sparling shoving his rock hard self into me, expecting that to throw me over the edge. I’m breathing fast and heavily and I’m almost there, I’m so close, when suddenly … I lose it. I hit a wall. The build-up collapses and in a blink that shatters my world, everything starts to make sense. The man I want pushing his way inside me is not Professor Sparling. It’s Henry Hart.

My insides ache like I’ve just been punched in the stomach. Has it been Henry all along? All these years? Henry who just ran from me? And to make it all worse, I just impulsively sent a very revealing picture to Professor Sparling, and there’s no way I can undo that. Thank God Henry doesn’t know about it. That would destroy any chance I have of really being with him. If it isn’t too late already.

I’m pacing back and forth across my apartment, trying to get a grip on the emotions spinning out of my control. My magnificently clarifying thought about Henry has confused me to the point of delirium. I put my hands on my head, fisting and yanking my hair in frustration as I pace. The cats join me in my back-and-forth and Tiny starts pawing at the door to the balcony, mewing for me to let him out. “Really?” I say. “It’s freezing out there.” He paws at the door.

“Cats will be cats,” I murmur, knowing that as soon as I let Tiny out he’s going to want to come right back in. When I open the door and look out over the balcony, a terrifying chill runs through me, and it’s not from the cold air. Parked in a circle of light beneath the lamppost across the street from my building, is a blue sedan with a dent in the door, just like the one that haunted me years ago. I feel like I’m seeing a ghost. No, no, no. Please no. This can’t be happening all over again.